Republic of hope

India’s metropolitan youth are gung-ho about the country’s future and that’s largely because of their immense belief in themselves . That’s the clear finding from an eight-city poll conducted exclusively for TOI in the run-up to Republic Day.
Almost three-fourths of all those polled felt India would be a developed country by 2020, or in less than a decade. With 61% also saying that the country’s biggest strength was its “youth power” , it’s evident what this optimism is based on.
The belief that India would be developed by the end of the decade was particularly strong in cities like Chennai and Ahmedabad, understandable perhaps given the fact that they are in states doing much better than the national average . Against the overall figure of 73%, 90% in Ahmedabad and 86% in Chennai felt India would be a developed nation by 2020. At the other end of the spectrum , only 43% of Delhi’s respondents held that view.
There were differences across cities also on the issue of which is India’s biggest strength. While 61% overall picked youth power, 16% each opted for “emerging economy” and “democracy” and 7% for “soft power” . In Kolkata, however, the biggest chunk felt democracy was the nation’s key strength. Chennai had 24% saying the economy was the crucial factor, a larger proportion than in any other city.
How about the biggest weakness? Predictably, given the mood of the moment , corruption emerged as easily the biggest, with 60% citing it. The large population was seen by 25% as the most serious concern, poor education standards by 10% and poor infrastructure by 6%. While the cities by and large agreed on the rankings of these weaknesses, a much larger number of people in Kolkata saw poor standards of education as the worst problem.
Given this view on what is the biggest weakness, it is perhaps not very surprising that Anna Hazare should have emerged as the leading response when asked who people saw as the “ideal citizen” . An impressive 41%picked him. Even an icon like Sachin Tendulkar came a distant second with only 17% choosing him, an indication also perhaps of the disillusionment with our cricketing stars given the disappointing performance during the ongoing tour of Australia.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can draw heart from the fact that he was in third place with 8% and the only politician to figure in the top five. The others in that exclusive club were businessmen N R Narayana Murthy and Mukesh Ambani, both getting 7% of the respondents voting for them.
On what constitutes the biggest threat to India’s democracy, views across cities were more sharply divided than on any of the other questions posed in the survey. Overall, 44% saw dynastic politics as the bane, 31% picked money and muscle power as the biggest threat, 15% cited attacks on civil society and 10% pointed towards attempts to muzzle the freedom of expression.
In Delhi (44%) and Chennai (45%), however, the use of money and muscle power was seen as the most serious threat and the national capital also saw attacks on civil society as the second biggest danger. Interestingly, among Mumbai respondents an unusually high 64% were most worried about the spectre of dynastic politics.
If you thought the Republic Day parade is a spectacle that has lost its sheen, think again. Asked how they respond to the parade an amazing 88% of all those polled said it makes them feel proud to be Indians,only 6% said it is a waste of money and a similar proportion said they see it as just another holiday.
This was a question on which the degree of unanimity across cities was particularly high. In none of the eight cities did less than 73% of the respondents say the parade made them feel proud to be Indians, while the highest proportion of 95% was in Pune.
The poll was conducted exclusively for TOI by Ipsos, a leading global market research agency, in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad , Ahmedabad and Pune, the only cities in India with populations above 5 million.
Those polled were from the socioeconomic categories (SEC) A and A-plus and were in the age group 18 to 35. Men and women were equally represented in the sample of 813 respondents, which included at least 100 from each of the eight cities covered by the poll.